than a few minutes. Meanwhile, this guy was fucking burning alive and he
didn’t even move. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t scream. He didn’t smile or
wince or grimace or even open his eyes to take one last look at the world he
had chosen to leave behind.
There was a purity to his act, not to mention an absolutely stunning
display of resolve. It is the ultimate example of mind over matter, of will over
instinct.^22
And despite the horror of it all, it somehow remains . . . inspiring.In 2011, Nassim Taleb wrote about a concept he dubbed “antifragility.” Taleb
argued that just as some systems become weaker under stress from external
forces, other systems gain strength under stress from external forces.^23
A vase is fragile: it shatters easily. The classic banking system is fragile,
as unexpected shifts in politics or the economy can cause it to break down.
Maybe your relationship with your mother-in-law is fragile, as any and every
thing you say will cause her to explode in a fiery plume of insults and drama.
Fragile systems are like beautiful little flowers or a teenager’s feelings: they
must be protected at all times.
Then you have robust systems. Robust systems resist change well.
Whereas a vase is fragile and breaks when you sneeze on it, an oil drum—
now that’s fucking robust. You can throw that shit around for weeks, and
nothing will happen to it. Still the same old oil drum.
As a society, we spend most of our time and money taking fragile systems
and trying to make them more robust. You hire a good lawyer to make your
business more robust. The government passes regulations to make the
financial system more robust. We institute rules and laws like traffic lights
and property rights to make our society more robust.
But, Taleb says, there is a third type of system, and that is the “antifragile”
system. Whereas a fragile system breaks down and a robust system resists
change, the antifragile system gains from stressors and external pressures.
Start-ups are antifragile businesses: they look for ways to fail quickly and
gain from those failures. Drug dealers are also anti-fragile: the crazier shit
gets, the more fucked up people want to get. A healthy love relationship is
antifragile: misfortune and pain make the relationship stronger rather than
weaker.^24 Veterans often talk about how the chaos of combat builds and
reinforces life-changing bonds between soldiers, rather than disintegrating
those bonds.
The human body can go either way, depending on how you use it. If you
get off your ass and actively seek out pain, the body is antifragile, meaning it